I love and admire my second-to-youngest cousin, he's an amazing artist and he's Jeopardy-smart, minus the social awkwardness. I adore his girlfriend of 7 years, (she, the lucky recipient of that Wii tennis racket last year), she's like a sister to me. I'm very protective of both of them which has proven difficult at times given their tendency to go off and on over the years. They were young when they met, 17 and 20, so it's not unusual to have growing pains. But to move out and call an end to your relationship every, oh 6 months or so is more than a minor growing pain.
They've been break-ups to make-ups since around the time she turned 20 and in January of this year it looked like it was finally for good. The entire family mourned cuz the girl just fit in with us from day one. But we understood that they had to do what felt right for them so we were supportive. By May, they were very much back on and seemed happier than ever. So happy in fact that he came to me in late June saying he wanted to ask her to marry him and asking me to help him come up with a clever way to propose. But two days before he'd planned to ask she said something that seriously hurt and upset him and he broke it off (again) "for good". I don't think it should have been as big of a deal as he made it (and, okay I was also miffed that my awesome proposal idea was never to see the light of day...or dark of night, as it woulda been) but I supported him (though he knew I was also still in contact with her).
They didn't speak for the next two months, he didn't even wanna hear her name. Then she had a minor health scare and coaxed him back into the fold. Now, four months later, he contemplating proposing again. This time, having thought about it much more, I'm urging him to wait. She's 24, he's 27 and I know she wants to marry him someday but not now. It's like he's got this idea in his head that marriage should be the next natural step so they should just take it. She feels like they're together for good this time but she also wants to give their relationship the best chance to thrive and thinks waiting is best. Neither of them have told the other any of this yet so we'll see how it shakes out. I hope they've evolved enough as a couple to work it out without having to break-up again.
Meanwhile, my sometime friend, sometime enemy cousin who is one month older than me almost to the day is involved in marriage drama of his own. I wrote awhile back that he wanted to propose to his girlfriend of two weeks. They've known each other a few years but were both taken at the time, he was engaged to a long-time girlfriend and she was married. Fate threw them back together again recently and they've both fallen head over heels but are very far apart on what should come next. He wants to marry her like yesterday and start a family next year. But she's not yet officially out of a bad marriage (the paperwork is held up) and is wanting to spend more time building her career, something she neglected for her estranged husband. My cousin never had a relationship with his abusive father and it's very important for him to have kids of his own. But he's very much about "doing it right", which means marriage before kids. She's more about letting whatever will be...well, be. She's over marriage because she's never known a good one and he's anxious to put a ring on it cuz he's got baby fever. Again, a total disconnect there and a lack of communication. I don't want them to just keep going like this until they absolutely have to deal with it and fall into an on/off thing. Things like marriage and kids should be on deal breaker lists in general; if you both want it, you want it, if you don't, you don't and if you're both on the fence and you're okay with that, then that's your path. The sooner you determine which of those is you, the better off your relationship will be. If you wait forever to deal with it, and I know this from experience, it will come back to bite you.
